Chapter 10
Melusine
This time, finally, the body she inhabited seemed unaware of her presence. Whether that was due solely to her own increased delicacy of touch or was partly because of the distractions of the chaotic surroundings, Melusine was not certain. But whatever the reason, the links were becoming easier to achieve, each more complete than the last so that the world became more vivid. She could concentrate now on smaller and smaller land areas in her quest for accessible hosts, of which she had already merged with several. Or perhaps she would continue to use this one.
From the moment the navigator had told her they were at the edge of the planet’s startlingly intense otherspace halo, she had known how to adjust. Her talents had begun to behave almost normally—despite the watershadow that dominated this world for her as its otherspace halo did for the navigator. The fit between her mind and that of each new host would continue to grow closer, and soon, as her mind gained access to their deepest thoughts as well as the full measure of their senses, the dissonance that surrounded her would become an intelligible language, the “music” something that made sense, although not in any straightforward, logical way.
Then, at last, she could—would have to—fully undertake the search for the legendary—and more than a little terrifying—Delphoros.
Above her the augmentor stirred, its cloud of cilia expanding like the fur of a restless cat, and Melusine felt a timid response in the fringes of her own defenseless consciousness.
She had found a city wrapped around this particular host she’d stumbled into—massive buildings of glass and metal and stone towered on all sides. An endless stream of other beings buffeted the female body she now inhabited, while a separate stream of beings in brightly-colored machines poured past her on the left. The sounds overwhelmed her—the screeches and blats that came from the moving machines, music that came from everywhere and nowhere blending in a haze of disharmony, so loud that the beings passing by her had to chatter in shouts so they could hear each other.
“Concert,” was the word foremost in this host’s mind. She’d been going to something called a concert at something called Milwaukee Summerfest when Melusine intercepted her. This woman’s body was so easy to fold into as its senses were dulled by something she’d recently smoked. A bitter taste lingered on the back of her tongue. Thoughts of popular tunes danced in this host’s head, and Melusine picked her way through it. Something called “The Grateful Dead” last summer. This year her host intended to watch Charles Aznavor and Jane Olivor, though they weren’t her favorite fare; she intended to rock to the secondary acts. But Melusine didn’t understand the concepts and had other plans, and she pushed the woman’s useless thoughts away.
The smells on the sidewalk were intense—the belch of acrid little clouds coming from the machines; the scent of sweat on some of the beings, a pong that clung to the dirtiest of them; sickly-sweet fragrances on a few that came close and then moved on. There was the odor of food, too, seeping out of windows overhead and coming from street corners where beings handed out steaming morsels she had no words for, but which made her host form’s mouth water.
Overwhelming, all of it, but at the same time wildly amazing and interesting and unsettling.
She struggled to take it all in, and in the end focused on ignoring as much as she could, relegating it to the back of her complex mind. Under control, her breathing became regular.
The Bright One had been here, on this very spot—though how long ago she couldn’t say. The navigator had confirmed it, pinpointing energy surges and patterns and separating human signatures from those that were not. And so this was a starting place, and from here Melusine would narrow the search, and use this host or others to sort through layers of this world in an effort to confirm if the Bright One still lived. And, if so, where he could be found. The navigator was certain that Delphoros or someone with similar abilities was within their grasp.
“Delphoros,” Melusine tried the word out on her borrowed bitter-tasting tongue. She hoped it was Delphoros and not another. She wanted it to be someone from Elthoran, and not a human, who would have a decidedly shorter lifespan.
Delphoros was a legend among her people, born in otherspace to a shipkeeper who’d mated with a navigator before his final alterations and immersion in the tank. A fifth-generation traveler, navigation studies were effortless to him; Delphoros’s instructors believed that his birth in otherspace, that part of space that was neither real nor solid, had somehow infused him with abilities beyond those of his peers. Melusine had read the records: no other Elthoran had been born in otherspace—despite many attempts to engineer such. As Delphoros grew, he did not hesitate to join the service, and he agreed to become a navigator, despite the alterations that would eventually rob him of the use of his legs and prevent him from breathing air, forever trapping him in the nutrient fluid of a navigation tank.
Could he still be alive and be outside his tank on this planet the residents called Earth? He must! Else the navigator’s readings of energy fields were faulty. Did Delphoros’s legs function? Was he lost so early in his life as a navigator that he had not yet been fully changed? Had his muscles not completely atrophied? Did he walk among these beings as one of them? Or was he pushed about like an invalid? Alive or dead, where was he now? He’d been on this very spot. But where was he now?
Melusine knew that Delphoros had undertaken only a dozen or so flights from Elthor through otherspace when his ship had been lost and a distress beacon sent out from this very world. The message took a great while to reach their home world, as it did not have the benefit of shaving time through otherspace. But when it did finally arrive—a few hundred years after the crash by their reckoning, her rescue ship was dispatched. Delphoros was too precious not to retrieve. He was too powerful to relegate to their history. He was crucial to Elthor’s continued use and exploration of otherspace. And with no prospective navigators left, he was necessary.
Melusine felt blessed that she’d been assigned to this mission. Her host’s chest swelled with pride at the thought of its importance.
“Delphoros,” she pronounced the word stronger with her host’s lyrical, feminine voice. “I will find Delphoros.” And Melusine expected to be richly rewarded if—when—she succeeded.
She’d committed his records to memory, concentrating on his few weaknesses. Delphoros’s instructors had remarked about his too-high regard for all life. One noted that while he supported Elthor’s otherspace explorations, he felt sorry for the ships they traveled in, believing them living beings that had been enslaved rather than lesser creatures to be dominated and exploited for their ability to haul freight and people through space and otherspace. So his good heart was his strongest weakness. Would that help her find him?
No doubt he’d tried to save the living ship when it crashed. Perhaps he was with its body still—as neither could it have long survived the injuries of a crash nor lived through the centuries like Elthorans could. Had he buried it somewhere to hide it from the people of this world? Was it buried beneath this very sidewalk?
Melusine bored deeper into her host’s murky mind so she could better control its body. She swung her arms in wide circles and clenched and unclenched the fingers. The bits of metal and crystals around the fingers bothered her, and so she shed them onto the pavement.
“I will find Delphoros with your help,” she told the woman.
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